A CONVERSATION
S.d. faction of the Fourth State Duma, concerning which the faction published a special appeal to all workers in No. 36 of *Za Pravdu* from November 4/3/1913.
Copies of this document were published by the Institute in No. 423 of *Pravda*, 6 June 1932.

A CONVERSATION.
[March-April 1913]

The First Outsider. I observe, as best I can attentively, the struggle among workers over "the six and the seven." I try to keep up with both newspapers. I compare, insofar as possible, the responses of the bourgeois and reactionary press.... And you know what? It seems to me that the struggle is taking on harsh forms, that it is degenerating into petty squabbling, into intrigues, that the result will be — in any case — an enormous demoralization.

The Second Outsider. I understand nothing. Where in the world has a struggle over something serious ever been seen that did not take on harsh forms? Precisely because a serious question is being decided by struggle, one cannot get by with a "gentle" quarrel. Those who are accustomed to denying and continue to deny the principles of party building will not surrender without the most desperate resistance. Desperate resistance everywhere and always generates "harsh forms," generates attempts to shift the dispute from the realm of principles into the realm of petty squabbling. What of it? Are you ordering me to renounce the struggle for the fundamental principles of party building because of this?

The Fourth Outsider. You are somewhat evading the question I posed and hurrying too much to "go on the offensive." Every circle of workers on both sides hastens to "roll out" a resolution, and there develops virtually a competition over who can outdo whom with strong language. Such abuse, repulsive to the workers' press, masses of working people seeking socialist enlightenment, who perhaps throw down the newspaper with a feeling of bewilderment, or some sort of shame for socialism.... Perhaps even they become disillusioned with socialism for a long time. Competition in cursing creates an atmosphere of some sort of "unnatural selection," putting forward to the front places "specialists in boxing".... Recklessness and roughness toward the opponent is encouraged on both sides. Should a socialist party give such education to the proletariat? Is this not an endorsement, or at least a permitting of opportunism, since opportunism is the sacrifice of the fundamental interests of the workers' movement to fleeting success? The fundamental interests of the workers' movement are being sacrificed by both sides to fleeting success.... Instead of joy from socialist work, immersion in it, serious attitude toward it, what results is that socialists repel the masses from socialism. One involuntarily recalls the bitter words that the proletariat will come to socialism despite socialists.

The Second Outsider. You and I are both outsiders, that is, we are not participating directly in the struggle. But outsiders, in understanding what is happening before their eyes, can relate to struggle in two ways. Looking from the side, one can see only the external, so to speak, side of struggle: figuratively speaking, one can see only clenched fists, distorted faces, ugly scenes; one can condemn all this, weep and wail about it. But one can also, looking from the side, understand the meaning of the struggle taking place, which is, if you will forgive me, somewhat more interesting and historically more significant than the little scenes and pictures of the so-called "excesses" or "extremities" in struggle. There is no struggle without fervor. There is no fervor without extremities; and, as far as I am concerned, I hate above all those people who in the struggle of classes, parties, factions see above all "extremities." I am always tempted — forgive me — to shout to these people: "As for me, better drink and understand the business."

And a great business is being decided here, a historically great business. A workers' party is being formed. Workers' independence, the influence of workers on their faction, the workers themselves deciding questions of their party — therein lies the great historical meaning of what is happening, that is what from a pious wish becomes a fact before our eyes. You are frightened and grieved by "extremities," while I observe with enthusiasm the struggle in which the working class of Russia is ripening and maturing in deed, I am beside myself only because I am an outsider, because I cannot hurl myself into the heart of this struggle....

The Fourth Outsider. And into the heart of "extremities," too? [And if "extremities" lead to the fabrication of resolutions, will you also proclaim "hatred" toward people who point this out, who are indignant about it, demand, at all costs, the cessation of this?]

The Second Outsider. Please do not frighten me! You will not intimidate me! Truly, you are beginning to resemble those people who are ready to condemn publicity on the occasion of the publication of false information. I understand: once in *Pravda* there appeared a report about the political dishonesty of one s.d., a report refuted long afterward. I can imagine what that s.d. experienced from the time of publication until the time of refutation! But publicity is a sword that itself heals the wounds it inflicts. [Will there be fabrications of resolutions? The falsifiers will be exposed and thrown out. That's all.] There are no serious battles on the scene without hospitals around the field of battle. But to let yourself be intimidated or demoralized by "hospital" scenes — that is something altogether unforgivable. If you fear wolves, do not go into the forest.

And as to opportunism, that is, the forgetting of the fundamental aims of socialism, you are shifting blame from the sick head to the healthy one. The way you put it, these fundamental aims are something like an "angelic ideal," unconnected with the "sinful" struggle for the business of the day, for the grievances of the given moment. To look at it this way means to turn socialism into a sweet phrase, into sugary sentimentalizing. Into every struggle for every grievance of the day one must inject an inseparable link with the fundamental aims. Only this understanding of the historical meaning of struggle makes it possible, deepening and sharpening it, to reject that roughness, that "recklessness," that "boxing" which is inevitable everywhere there is a crowd, noise, shouting, pushing, but which rejects itself of its own accord.

You speak of a socialist party educating the proletariat. But the question in this struggle is precisely about defending the fundamental principles of party organization. Before every circle of workers there looms, in sharp, irreconcilable, demanding immediate and direct answers, a form of question about what policy *it* wants to conduct in the Duma, how *it* relates to an open party and to underground work, whether *it* considers the Duma faction to stand above the party or the opposite. After all, these are all the ABCs, the fundamentals of party existence, after all this is the question of whether the party will be or not be.

Socialism is not a finished system with which humanity will be blessed. Socialism is the class struggle of the present proletariat, moving from one goal today to another tomorrow in the name of its fundamental goal, drawing closer to it with each day. Socialism is proceeding today in the country called